no no no.... let's not imply things that weren't meant and take the discussion down THAT road. Allow me to rephrase as it was intended:
Our bodies are configured for operation in a virus/bacteria rich environment, and has the ability to fight of most of them. (However said configuration came to be, which is irrelevant to the discussion.)
exactly. And while socialism isn't in itself a bad thing (neither is commusism, capitalism, or totalitarianism when everyone involved is completely altruistic), it suffers the same problem as any other non-competitive institution: abuse of the commons. It only takes one non-altruistic participant (and there always is one, or one comes along) to kill the system.
Also, look at the competitive rush to get pirated movies out on the net. The free/cheaper alternatives will stifle any revenue stream you attempt to set up to support further creation of your creative work. This is especially the case with the accelerating digitization of everything. Even in non-digital, mass produced scenarios: if copyright/patents were abolished, whole industries aimed at immediate copycat would pop up. There would have been 50 near-identical iPod clones being sold for almost nothing (Free After Rebate, anyone?) as soon as reverse engineering permitted. And if it was a primary business model, I imagine days-to-weeks being realistic.
In short, abolishing copyright means you get minimal return on your work for a very short period of time. While the idea that you only make money producing new, innovative work is a nice one, the fact that that work will exceedingly quickly depreciate to near-zero value can completely destroy incentive to create.
Intellectual property is a capitalistic staple. Just because there are problems with the current setup (how old is Mickey Mouse now?) doesn't mean the entire concept is flawed.
I hope your endeavor works, but I believe you'll be fighting a losing battle.
Seriously, have you ever heard of anyone getting sick from a keyboard?
yup, and a doorknob, and a telephone handset, and...
seriously, when's the last time you got a cold or a stomache virus and you can absolutely tell where it came from? (the case of the kid sneezing in your face doesn't count)
But the point is valid: Our bodies are designed to operate in a virus/bacteria rich environment, and has the ability to fight of most of them.
Article has a lot of good points, but overgeneralizes using antimicrobial in many places that should simply be stated antibacterial. There's a big difference between the overuse of antimicrobial soaps and hand-sanitizers and the overuse of antibiotics, one of which will have minimal impact on resistance, and one which has major implications.
True, it's wrong to bury the knowledge. But also wrong is how the knowledge was gained in the first place. Thus, the ethical response would be: maintain the knowledge, but do not repeat the practice in an attempt to gain more knowledge, as the gain in knowlegde does not justify further human atrocity.
Now, Mengele's human atrocities are a far cry from sumbitting fraudulent data/results, but some with ethical objections to embryonic stem cell research could argue that his falsifications facilitate what they characterize as a humanitarian atrocity. But, being that steps A and B in that sequence are clearly delineated, no, his publications which are found to be valid should be left as is.
If the terms of your contract/service agreement state that they can terminate service for certain reasons, including defamatory statements, and you signed/agreed to that, then they can dump you in an instant.
slander/libel are about misstatments of facts. Putting the words "i think that..." or "in my opinion..." can make a huge difference in whether something is or isn't libel/slander. Most people would consider insults to be opinions, but thot could get fuzzy (calling someone gay, for instance.)
Any authoritarian body can wield quasi-governmental control over a person.
True.
Universities have greater quasi-governmental powers than most municipalities.
True. They likely have a charter, bylaws, or equivalent. Those would likely be implied parts of the contractual agreememnt between the student and school. If they say: student can't be penalized for free speech, he has grounds for a suit. They likely lean on the side of the school, however, and that's the school's right to have it that way.
Additionally most private Institutions still receive Federal and State funding.
Probably also true in this case. However, funding likely takes the form of specific grants, rather than general operating funds (as would a state school). Those grant awards would be contractually governed, and the terms of said contract would indicate whether the funding was contingent on anything remotely approaching abiding by the Constitutional free speech guarantee. If it does, well, then maybe those specific funds should be yanked. Trouble seeing grounds for a suit against the school by the student based on this, unless they withheld state/federally granted funds from him, but again that would have to be contractually related.
No place should be allowed to impose sanctions on speech, but especially Instituition of higher learning should not be allowed.
Overly broad, general, and False. I may limit what I allow you to say in my house, and may remove you from the house and deny re-entry if you violate that. That's my right as a private individual with private property. You may get all the neighbors mad at me as a result, which may shame me into letting you back in, but that is your right as an individual, and my right in deciding whether or not to cave in. No where in any of this are there legitimate grounds for a suit.
If they will not do so on thier own, then they should be slapped down by the will of the people.
True. As they have been. The court of public opinion has likely been the deciding factor in the school official's decision to reduce the penalty. It should be eliminated altogether, but it's a step. This is how things should work. Not through frivolous civil suits. The constitution guarantees the right to be an idiot. That applies to both parties in this case.
He could always go for damages related to emotional distress, but he violated anything that was contractually stipulated...
right, but what laws would they have been breaking (assuming they weren't violating any private contract with the student)? Freedom of speech, association, etc., only applies to government influence. Private entities cannot be sued (well, anyone can sue anyone else for anything, but validity is another manner) for violating freedom of speech. So, what's the legal claim in the lawsuit?
Sue based on what? It's a private institution and can legally do whatever it wants, within the bounds of any contractual obligations. I'm sure somewhere in the student code of conduct is a statement to the effect of: "If we don't like you, or you piss us off, we can f you in whatever way we please"
actually, it is the preferred accounting number to use. It seems more like an anti-fanboy trying to find some way to stick the fanboy argument into the mix, and failing miserably under the pressure of rational and compelling argument.
hmmm... DDR hard drive needs external power supply. So, basically the idea is to use RAM as a HDD by never turning it off? Nice. 'Cause power outages never happen.
Although, seeing as how I have to reformat my windows box once a year or so, this would make that process really fast.
Also, is there any validity to that device? Links to an article with no meat (manufacturer mentioned as "the firm"), and it only points to a webpage with an email address and the same graphic in the article.. My guess is someone was playing with Photoshop.
Sounds very similar to the approach taken in the US to go after Junk Faxers. TCPA stipulates for $500/fax received, tripled if the sender had explicit knowledge prior to sending that it was unwanted by the recipient. Fits into small claims in most states. Process = send demand letter, threaten with suit, file small claims suit, show up for single court date. Filing allows you to subpeona phone records, if needed. No lawyer necessary. Many times settlement occurs once they're served. It would work wonderfully if all JF's originated in-state, and if more people made the effort.
I don't think most US spam legislation gives that kind of capability to the average citizen. (maybe in Virginia?) But it's also easier with faxes, since POTS has very clearly defined and recorded sources/destinations for each transmission, unlike spam. FYI: www.junkfax.org
I have unfortunately been exposed to way too many of the soaps watched by my wife. Soaps are historically associated with the female viewing audience.
Question: how many new (age 17+) male soap actors do you see that don't look like they have a daily regimen with a personal trainer, and spend at least 1/3 of their time on show without a shirt? I can count 3 that I remember, and they were supposed to be older guys anyway. Oh, that and half of them fit the "unrealistically emotionally connceted" profile mentioned in an earlier post.
So, while the gaming industry developed, and post-pubescent boys were the prime video game playing audience. Guess what game developers learned: big boobs and lots of skin sell games. Positive feedback result: more boobs, more skin. (I specifically recall a game advertising "real breast physics".) It doesn't have to be realistic, or seem like something that could be obtainable. It is watched in media and fantasized about because it is unobtainable.
Similarly, in the soap opera world, casting departments hired guys who would appeal to the young and middle aged female target audience. They got guys who looked amazing with their shirts off. Positive feedback effect there too.
The law of supply and demand will not change. And changing consumer behavior (the break-in of a new competing idea for its positive benefit, rather than its appeal to the audience) is inherently hard to do (hence hybrid technology). the Sims is the only example I can think of that has started to show otherwise. (maybe that shows that it's not a matter of changing behaviour as introducing a different option. TBD.)
And finally, from TFA (when I could get through):
"Given the abilities of computer technology, women's images and avatars can look like the most grotesque version of a wet dream ever conceived. What is the logic in this? There isn't any, and more gamers, even the men, are realizing it."
Why don't we draw realistic people (men and women)? Chisled features are easier to draw. How long did it take Pixar to accurately model Mr. Incredible's flab? Flab is hard. And, see above, if you have a choice between realistic and unrealistic, what grabs your mass audience better?
Oh, and I do believe media portrayal of women does have a harmful positive feedback result. (anorexia, bulemia, etc, are modern ills, tied to media portrayal.) Someone else here said "if they have a malformed persona and can't come to grips with their own body image, they should see a shrink."(paraphrased) Well, yeah, but it's not like the problem occurred independent of the media that post was trying to defend, it occurred because of it (it being the feedback loop, of which media is an integral part, but not the whole.)
If I remember correctly, the patent attorney did file it as a proxy for his kid, and specifically did it to demonstrate the rediculousness of certain aspects of the system.
If we accept that looking at/being exposed to/whatever "explicit content" is harmful, it is the act of exposure, not later actions taken with the information, that is harmful. Car sites would be fine, unless you're reading another article about Jay Leno's fleet of autos, which could cause you brain damage, and should be banned.
Sorry to nitpick, but the SiO2 formed for typical gate oxides would be fused silica (semi-amorphous) not crystalline SiO2 (quartz crystal). Although they don't mention the specifics, typical RTA schemes only take the wafer to about 1100C, and the divitrification process of going from silica to quartz drops to an almost zero rate below that. So, assuming they don't super-heat the wafer (there would be a lot of resulting issues with any previous Silicon diffusions, and I thought quartz had worse gate-oxide properties anyway, but I'm not certain) there is no long-term order of the SiO4 groups, so removing crystal imperfections probably isn't the correct descriptor to use.
Now, gate oxide quality is directly related to the density of the oxide, as higher densities indicate better uniformity and less "empty space" for impurities to creep in. I would think the key would be to either drive out impurities, or keep them from finding a home in the oxide in the first place. Gathering the impurities would be a worse condition. If you previously had lower density evenly distributed impurities, but then somehow gathered them to a bunch of local spots, you've basically introduced local charge and field asperities that could serve as points of initiating failure. Then again, if things are below the failure threshold, I'm not sure if having a few really bad spots is better or worse than having a lot of mildly bad spots.
"Isn't this like a communist country where you can have "free" speech but end up in a gulag as a social consequence"
No, it is exactly UNlike said communist government, because the government is not what's taking action here. The first ammendment means that the government may make no laws restricting the freedom of speech. If he was arrested for what he said, that would be a no-no. However, just as the goverment cannot abridge speech, private entities are able to say what they please, and they are alowed to react to said speech as they see fit. Freedom of association: they no longer wish to associate with him based on his exercised freedom of speech.
Now, one can argue any contractual relationship the school and he may have had. On those grounds, it could be argued in front of a civil court that one or the other party is in breach for their actions. But, it's still not a constitutional argument.
Supporting this post's parent, here's an IEEE article about computer/internet usage in some third world locations. There is a positive benefit, even if penetration doesn't take the same form as over here:
Since a web browser is a rather basic piece of software, making browser interfaces to ODF documents doesn't even technically require internet access. You could work on locally stored files through the browser. Some of those 3rd world countries didn't have persistent internet anyway, but did file up/downloads at the end of the day. ODF would work just fine for them, and a free browser interface? no problem there. FTFA, hard to say whether they would be making the "Web Portal" in the traditional sense (i.e., here's the ibm.com hosted web portal for downloading your documents), or more of a local interface (my network LAN fileserver has a portal interface for getting local files).
Now, no one argues that offline advertising is effective. It's been around long enough to take care of that. Why is it, when we know so much about how offline advertising works, that we put blinders on when it comes to online advertising? I.e., the value of an online ad is measured only by it's click-thru's, or purchases off click-thru's. So, say I saw some ad somewhere, and two days later I need a WidgetX, and I remember the particular ad, or maybe just the name of the website, or even the brick'n'mortar store, and I go spend my cash on said WidgetX. I did that because of the ad, but it will never be reflected in a click-thru.
Online advertising is the first format with a method for direct and immediate measurement, thus it has (to its detriment) become the only measurement of effectiveness. Accordingly, online ads are designed with the single purpose of getting you to immediately click-thru to the website. Usually minimal (if any) information is conveyed in the ad, and the ad is essentially worthless if it doesn't generate a click-thru. Self-fulfilling prophesy.
At least with Google Ads being more contextually relevant than some, and displaying the url, it has a chance of serving a legitimate marketing function similar to its offline cousins. But it seems like most people out there just don't get it.
Slashdot Mirror
Our bodies are configured for operation in a virus/bacteria rich environment, and has the ability to fight of most of them. (However said configuration came to be, which is irrelevant to the discussion.)
exactly. And while socialism isn't in itself a bad thing (neither is commusism, capitalism, or totalitarianism when everyone involved is completely altruistic), it suffers the same problem as any other non-competitive institution: abuse of the commons. It only takes one non-altruistic participant (and there always is one, or one comes along) to kill the system.
Also, look at the competitive rush to get pirated movies out on the net. The free/cheaper alternatives will stifle any revenue stream you attempt to set up to support further creation of your creative work. This is especially the case with the accelerating digitization of everything. Even in non-digital, mass produced scenarios: if copyright/patents were abolished, whole industries aimed at immediate copycat would pop up. There would have been 50 near-identical iPod clones being sold for almost nothing (Free After Rebate, anyone?) as soon as reverse engineering permitted. And if it was a primary business model, I imagine days-to-weeks being realistic.
In short, abolishing copyright means you get minimal return on your work for a very short period of time. While the idea that you only make money producing new, innovative work is a nice one, the fact that that work will exceedingly quickly depreciate to near-zero value can completely destroy incentive to create.
Intellectual property is a capitalistic staple. Just because there are problems with the current setup (how old is Mickey Mouse now?) doesn't mean the entire concept is flawed.
I hope your endeavor works, but I believe you'll be fighting a losing battle.
seriously, when's the last time you got a cold or a stomache virus and you can absolutely tell where it came from? (the case of the kid sneezing in your face doesn't count)
But the point is valid: Our bodies are designed to operate in a virus/bacteria rich environment, and has the ability to fight of most of them.
Article has a lot of good points, but overgeneralizes using antimicrobial in many places that should simply be stated antibacterial. There's a big difference between the overuse of antimicrobial soaps and hand-sanitizers and the overuse of antibiotics, one of which will have minimal impact on resistance, and one which has major implications.
and to make it work:
http://web.mit.edu/jcb/www/Dvorak/
Remapping instructions part way down page.
now, does anyone know how to make the ALT-SHIFT/CTRL-SHIFT toggles behave in Win2K?
Now, Mengele's human atrocities are a far cry from sumbitting fraudulent data/results, but some with ethical objections to embryonic stem cell research could argue that his falsifications facilitate what they characterize as a humanitarian atrocity. But, being that steps A and B in that sequence are clearly delineated, no, his publications which are found to be valid should be left as is.
If the terms of your contract/service agreement state that they can terminate service for certain reasons, including defamatory statements, and you signed/agreed to that, then they can dump you in an instant.
In this case, I don't think libel would stick.
Any authoritarian body can wield quasi-governmental control over a person.
True.
Universities have greater quasi-governmental powers than most municipalities.
True. They likely have a charter, bylaws, or equivalent. Those would likely be implied parts of the contractual agreememnt between the student and school. If they say: student can't be penalized for free speech, he has grounds for a suit. They likely lean on the side of the school, however, and that's the school's right to have it that way.
Additionally most private Institutions still receive Federal and State funding.
Probably also true in this case. However, funding likely takes the form of specific grants, rather than general operating funds (as would a state school). Those grant awards would be contractually governed, and the terms of said contract would indicate whether the funding was contingent on anything remotely approaching abiding by the Constitutional free speech guarantee. If it does, well, then maybe those specific funds should be yanked. Trouble seeing grounds for a suit against the school by the student based on this, unless they withheld state/federally granted funds from him, but again that would have to be contractually related.
No place should be allowed to impose sanctions on speech, but especially Instituition of higher learning should not be allowed.
Overly broad, general, and False. I may limit what I allow you to say in my house, and may remove you from the house and deny re-entry if you violate that. That's my right as a private individual with private property. You may get all the neighbors mad at me as a result, which may shame me into letting you back in, but that is your right as an individual, and my right in deciding whether or not to cave in. No where in any of this are there legitimate grounds for a suit.
If they will not do so on thier own, then they should be slapped down by the will of the people.
He could always go for damages related to emotional distress, but he violated anything that was contractually stipulated...True. As they have been. The court of public opinion has likely been the deciding factor in the school official's decision to reduce the penalty. It should be eliminated altogether, but it's a step. This is how things should work. Not through frivolous civil suits. The constitution guarantees the right to be an idiot. That applies to both parties in this case.
right, but what laws would they have been breaking (assuming they weren't violating any private contract with the student)? Freedom of speech, association, etc., only applies to government influence. Private entities cannot be sued (well, anyone can sue anyone else for anything, but validity is another manner) for violating freedom of speech. So, what's the legal claim in the lawsuit?
Sue based on what? It's a private institution and can legally do whatever it wants, within the bounds of any contractual obligations. I'm sure somewhere in the student code of conduct is a statement to the effect of: "If we don't like you, or you piss us off, we can f you in whatever way we please"
but you can't render the pages on the screens, because once they're/it's observed, there should only be one cat, skinned or not.
actually, it is the preferred accounting number to use. It seems more like an anti-fanboy trying to find some way to stick the fanboy argument into the mix, and failing miserably under the pressure of rational and compelling argument.
but the server can't generate a true random number, just highly chaotic ones!
The article he quoted (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28647) is titled:
"Solid state DDR drive goes into prototype"
and in the picture, the device is labeled "DDRdrive X1"
and it looks like 4 RAM chips in a custom board. Main page with the picture HERE.
so, I think someone might have said something about DDR.
Although, seeing as how I have to reformat my windows box once a year or so, this would make that process really fast.
Also, is there any validity to that device? Links to an article with no meat (manufacturer mentioned as "the firm"), and it only points to a webpage with an email address and the same graphic in the article.. My guess is someone was playing with Photoshop.
Following this logic, ancient manufacturers of coaches could sue modern car manufacturers just because they use wheels too. nope. 17 years.
what sort of project-specific bonuses do busboys make these days?
I don't think most US spam legislation gives that kind of capability to the average citizen. (maybe in Virginia?) But it's also easier with faxes, since POTS has very clearly defined and recorded sources/destinations for each transmission, unlike spam. FYI: www.junkfax.org
I have unfortunately been exposed to way too many of the soaps watched by my wife. Soaps are historically associated with the female viewing audience.
Question: how many new (age 17+) male soap actors do you see that don't look like they have a daily regimen with a personal trainer, and spend at least 1/3 of their time on show without a shirt? I can count 3 that I remember, and they were supposed to be older guys anyway. Oh, that and half of them fit the "unrealistically emotionally connceted" profile mentioned in an earlier post.
So, while the gaming industry developed, and post-pubescent boys were the prime video game playing audience. Guess what game developers learned: big boobs and lots of skin sell games. Positive feedback result: more boobs, more skin. (I specifically recall a game advertising "real breast physics".) It doesn't have to be realistic, or seem like something that could be obtainable. It is watched in media and fantasized about because it is unobtainable.
Similarly, in the soap opera world, casting departments hired guys who would appeal to the young and middle aged female target audience. They got guys who looked amazing with their shirts off. Positive feedback effect there too.
The law of supply and demand will not change. And changing consumer behavior (the break-in of a new competing idea for its positive benefit, rather than its appeal to the audience) is inherently hard to do (hence hybrid technology). the Sims is the only example I can think of that has started to show otherwise. (maybe that shows that it's not a matter of changing behaviour as introducing a different option. TBD.)
And finally, from TFA (when I could get through):
Why don't we draw realistic people (men and women)? Chisled features are easier to draw. How long did it take Pixar to accurately model Mr. Incredible's flab? Flab is hard. And, see above, if you have a choice between realistic and unrealistic, what grabs your mass audience better?Oh, and I do believe media portrayal of women does have a harmful positive feedback result. (anorexia, bulemia, etc, are modern ills, tied to media portrayal.) Someone else here said "if they have a malformed persona and can't come to grips with their own body image, they should see a shrink."(paraphrased) Well, yeah, but it's not like the problem occurred independent of the media that post was trying to defend, it occurred because of it (it being the feedback loop, of which media is an integral part, but not the whole.)
If I remember correctly, the patent attorney did file it as a proxy for his kid, and specifically did it to demonstrate the rediculousness of certain aspects of the system.
If we accept that looking at/being exposed to/whatever "explicit content" is harmful, it is the act of exposure, not later actions taken with the information, that is harmful. Car sites would be fine, unless you're reading another article about Jay Leno's fleet of autos, which could cause you brain damage, and should be banned.
Now, gate oxide quality is directly related to the density of the oxide, as higher densities indicate better uniformity and less "empty space" for impurities to creep in. I would think the key would be to either drive out impurities, or keep them from finding a home in the oxide in the first place. Gathering the impurities would be a worse condition. If you previously had lower density evenly distributed impurities, but then somehow gathered them to a bunch of local spots, you've basically introduced local charge and field asperities that could serve as points of initiating failure. Then again, if things are below the failure threshold, I'm not sure if having a few really bad spots is better or worse than having a lot of mildly bad spots.
No, it is exactly UNlike said communist government, because the government is not what's taking action here. The first ammendment means that the government may make no laws restricting the freedom of speech. If he was arrested for what he said, that would be a no-no. However, just as the goverment cannot abridge speech, private entities are able to say what they please, and they are alowed to react to said speech as they see fit. Freedom of association: they no longer wish to associate with him based on his exercised freedom of speech.
Now, one can argue any contractual relationship the school and he may have had. On those grounds, it could be argued in front of a civil court that one or the other party is in breach for their actions. But, it's still not a constitutional argument.
Taking the Internet to the People
Since a web browser is a rather basic piece of software, making browser interfaces to ODF documents doesn't even technically require internet access. You could work on locally stored files through the browser. Some of those 3rd world countries didn't have persistent internet anyway, but did file up/downloads at the end of the day. ODF would work just fine for them, and a free browser interface? no problem there. FTFA, hard to say whether they would be making the "Web Portal" in the traditional sense (i.e., here's the ibm.com hosted web portal for downloading your documents), or more of a local interface (my network LAN fileserver has a portal interface for getting local files).
Online advertising is the first format with a method for direct and immediate measurement, thus it has (to its detriment) become the only measurement of effectiveness. Accordingly, online ads are designed with the single purpose of getting you to immediately click-thru to the website. Usually minimal (if any) information is conveyed in the ad, and the ad is essentially worthless if it doesn't generate a click-thru. Self-fulfilling prophesy.
At least with Google Ads being more contextually relevant than some, and displaying the url, it has a chance of serving a legitimate marketing function similar to its offline cousins. But it seems like most people out there just don't get it.